Heather Wright/The Independent

Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong MP Marilyn Gladu is praising the Liberal plan to put more money into trades
training.

The Carney government released its fiscal forecast Tuesday with officials say there will be a $66.9 billion budget deficit instead of the projected $78.3 billion.

The reduction comes from higher than projected revenue and cost cutting on the government operations. Gladu notes that’s a $11 billion deficit reduction – “So I thought that was good,” she told The Independent.

While the deficit is still high, Gladu says “with the world on the brink of an economic recession” investment in the country is necessary.

“We know, even when Stephen Harper was prime minister and Mark Carney was Bank of Canada and Jim Flaherty was the finance minister, they did a lot of investing in building in Canada to try to sustain the economy. And I think that same approach is warranted here.”

Gladu is also glad to see more money invested in trades training.

As a Conservative MP, before crossing the floor April 8, she criticized the government for cutting training cash.

“This is going to be huge for us in Sarnia-Lambton, because there’s a $10,000 per apprentice incentive, like a wage supplement for small and medium businesses. I think that will be super meaningful. There’s also $5,000 once you get your Red Seal. And I think that’s a good replacement for the system that they had in the past, that they sort of replaced with a loan program that is not as well received,” she said.

“All of these nation building projects that the economic update was highlighting, many of those actually
will create work for us in Sarnia-Lambton. And the more work we have, the more apprentices can be put to work.

“This incentive will just, I think, move it even further,” said Gladu.